


From my mouth (Into your heart)

by targaryen_melodrama



Series: This is Life (You Showed Me Love) [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Multi, OT3, POV Bucky Barnes, main pairing is Sambucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 20:36:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16730205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/targaryen_melodrama/pseuds/targaryen_melodrama
Summary: Emotions are even harder to deal with than they were back then, so it’s understandable, really, that Bucky’s hesitating. That he’s scared. Bucky knows he loves Sam. He’s known for a while now.But falling in love with someone and being in a relationship with them, a relationship with firsts and milestones…that was new.





	From my mouth (Into your heart)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, as always, to my lovely beta, friend extraordinaire, who has meltdowns in her comments. I miss you! 
> 
> I was fully intending for the previous instalment to be the last, but I kept thinking that a Bucky POV fic would round things out nicely, and then inspiration struck and here we are.

Bucky stopped being startled by his reflection about a year ago, but standing completely immobile in front of his bathroom mirror still feels familiar.

The circumstances are different, this time though. In the mirror, he doesn’t see foreign eyes cataloging foreign features. There’s no wondering whose hands are tracing the bumps and scars of what—of _who_ —he had learned was a man. No familiarizing himself with this body, no anchoring himself to what he could rationally understand to be reality.

No, this time, Bucky recognizes the skin that’s flushing as his, the focused eyes as his, and the mouth that’s shaping unfamiliar words as his, too.

Well.

 _Trying_ to shape.

“I...I love.” He takes a deep breath, swallows. “I love—you. Sam. Sam,” he tries again, clearing his throat. “I—”

“Buck? Are you gonna be done soon? We’re gonna be late if we don’t start getting ready now.”

Bucky sighs at the sound of Steve’s voice, annoyed at being brought back to reality, but grateful for the fact that Steve is about...10 feet away from the bathroom, respecting his privacy.

“I’ll be out in a second.”

He huffs at Steve when he leaves the bathroom and sees him patiently waiting with a freshly-washed towel in hand, and gets an eye roll for his troubles. Bucky’s not even that mad at being interrupted, but he’s gotta play the part if he doesn’t want Steve—or anyone else—to clue in on the fact that he doesn’t completely hate the little family Steve’s built himself in the 21st century.

Tonight is Rhodes and Stark’s engagement party, and the only people Bucky’s told about his excitement for the event are Barton’s dog when he took him on a walk last week, and his therapist. In that order.

The thing is, this is all new to Bucky. For one, the group of friends who expect for Bucky to rely on them if something goes wrong.

For two, him being proudly out and about (as much as he can) with not one, but two men on his arms.

For three, and, most surprisingly, Bucky...found that he likes romance. Likes all those movies that Natalia calls a waste of time, loves the books Sam drops off for him every other week when he returns his own borrowed books. And he has no clue if this is leftover from 1930s Bucky or if this is completely new to the 21st century, but he loves _love_. He loves companionship and displays of affection, and he’s a little excited to attend his first engagement party.

And it would be quite romantic, he thinks, to tell Sam he loves him for the first time at the party—if he can manage to get the fucking words out.

Bucky sighs again as he grabs his all-black suit from his closet.

He knows he loves Sam. He’s known for a while now, and both the Internet and his therapist had said that six months was a decent time to tell someone you loved them.

But falling in love with someone and being in a relationship with them, a relationship with firsts and milestones…that was as new as _Love Actually_ and _Clueless_.

He’d told Steve he loved him before he even knew what that actually meant.

He’d never had the opportunity to tell Peggy how he really felt.

And as to Gabe...well, you kept words like that to yourself in the war. It’s more than a little fucked up to give someone an additional burden to carry when their life was threatened on a daily basis.

Emotions are even harder to deal with than they were back then, so it’s understandable, really, that Bucky’s...hesitating. That he’s...scared.

“Buck? Everything all right?”

Bucky realizes he’d been standing in his room, staring at the suit draped over his arm.

“I’m fine, Steve. Promise. Just...thinking.”

“Okay,” Steve says in a tone that’s this close to sounding sincere. “Think faster, though, the car’ll be here in 20 and Sam’ll be here in 10.”

“Yeah, yeah. Give me 15 minutes.”

15 minutes was enough time for Bucky to lay waste to a Hydra base or to take down an entire street block, but not nearly enough for him to figure out how to stop being tongue-tied.

“Fuck,” Bucky mutters with feeling as he takes off his t-shirt. “I’m a mess.”

  
*

  
“How are you doing?” Sam asks, once they’re done saying hi to the people they know.

Their ride here had been quiet but comfortable, with Steve on the far left, reading on his phone, head leaning against Sam’s shoulder. Sam was in the middle, idly chatting with the driver and letting Bucky trace nonsensical patterns on his right hand. 

“Pretty good,” Bucky says honestly. For a place so big, the atmosphere feels quite intimate. The live band was playing something soft and light, the food looked amazing and the drinks were flowing: it looks exactly like what a Stark engagement party should be.

“Look at you,” Sam says with a smirk as he bumps their shoulders together, “enjoying the company of other human beings.”

“Don’t push it, Wilson. I’m enjoying Steve’s company,” he says, even though Steve left to go talk to Phil a minute ago. “ _Kind of_ enjoying yours.”

“Then what are you doing holding my hand? Go mingle, baby. Be free.”

“Absolutely not,” Bucky scoffs. “Having you on my arm makes my credibility go up, you know? ‘ _If he can snatch himself a fella like that, that Barnes guy can’t be all bad’_.”

Sam’s eyes soften a touch, the way they always do when one of them compliments him. Bucky doesn’t think he’ll ever tire of the sight, especially not with the way Sam is currently filling out his dark grey suit. “Well, if it’s to help your _street cred_ …”

“That,” Bucky says, and takes a deep breath, “and the fact that I—”

“Distinguished guests, if I could have your attention!”

 _Damn it, Stark_. That would’ve been _smooth_.

The music stops, and soon, the room is completely quiet. Steve slides back to Sam’s left side and slips a hand behind his back, his fingers briefly squeezing Bucky’s, before settling on Sam’s waist.

“I’d like to thank you all for coming. It means a lot to me, and it means a lot to—darling, if you could _please_ —” Stark, in one smooth motion, puts his champagne glass down, grabs Rhodes from where he was still hiding, moves him so he’s standing right next to him, and grabs his champagne back up. “—there. It means a lot to me, and it means a lot to my darling fiancé here, who is too shy for his own good.”

Bucky sees Rhodes mutter something that he can’t hear and Stark grins, large and ridiculous, before he goes on. “I, ah, I don’t have a lot of family left, as you all know. So I didn’t really know how something like this would turn out, but Rhodey here deserves a nice engagement party, and no one throws a party like I do, so why not, you know? But to my surprise, the room is full, and there isn’t one of you here that I outright despise, so I’d call it a success.”

The room laughs and Stark, like the pro he is, waits for them to be finished before he continues.

“But to call it my success would be a complete lie. The people here—the people here are people who tolerate me, and they’re people who love you,” he says, turning to Rhodes. “Who love how generous and thoughtful you are. How honest and hardworking. So if you have to congratulate anyone,” he says to the room again, though his eyes are glued on Rhodes, who’s staring right back, “congratulate me, and only me, for convincing a man like that to spend the rest of his days with me.”

Like he can’t help himself anymore, Rhodes kisses Stark under a chorus of _awww_ s.

Bucky resists the urge to wipe at his eyes. He can’t even be mad about the lump in his throat, ‘cause this sappy shit is exactly what he came for.

 _Well that and supporting my friends, I guess_.

“Please raise your glasses,” Pepper, who was probably behind this whole affair, says. Steve grabs two from the waiter and hands them to Bucky and Sam. “To Rhodey and Tony!”

“To Rhodey and Tony,” the room calls back.

All three of them sip what has to be top shelf champagne, before Steve moves to face them both and completely ruin Bucky’s relaxed mood.

“This...this kinda makes you think, huh?”

Sam raises an eyebrow and makes a noncommittal _hmm_ that doesn’t do anything to deter Steve.

“I mean...this is nice, right? Celebrating your love in front of friends and family.”

“Steve,” Bucky says. He hopes Steve takes it for the warning that it is. His tie is starting to feel just a little tight around his throat, and he can feel his hand starting to sweat around Sam’s.

“I know, I know.”

“Do you?” Sam asks.

“It’s not exactly legal here, for the three of us,” Steve says anyway, proving Sam right. “But it is in New Zealand, and what’s a couple of hours—Bucky? Bucky!”

Bucky is striding towards the nearest exit, and is quite happy that everyone is still focused on the happy couple. No one who isn’t trained to will notice him.

Thankfully, the bathroom is a single stall, and is just a few feet outside of the exit. Bucky knocks, swings the door open when he’s satisfied there isn’t anyone inside, locks the door, and leans back against it.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He didn’t mean to react this way—this _strongly_ to Steve’s words, but it had just _happened_.

And though Bucky hates to admit it, he knows _why_ it happened.

It happened...because Bucky agrees with Steve. He _completely_ agrees with Steve.

Bucky would love nothing more than to show up in his Sunday best at some church or a courthouse or hell, a fucking parking lot, as long as someone could pronounce him and Sam and Steve husbands.

He’d love nothing more than to have a ring on his left hand, an anniversary to celebrate. He’d love to be able to do something as ridiculous as check _‘married’_ in those government forms he has to fill out from time to time.

But he can’t do it, can’t do _any_ of that if he can’t even tell Sam—

“Buck? Can I help or do you wanna be left alone?”

Bucky sighs and opens the door. Sam looks worried, but otherwise okay.

“Come in,” he says with a nod to the bathroom.

“You think we’ll both fit in here?”

“We’ve fucked in tighter spaces than this, sweetheart.”

Sam rolls his eyes, but comes in. Bucky shuts and locks the door behind them, and leans against the door again.

“Are you okay?”

“Not really,” Bucky admits. “But—but not for the reason you think.”

“Oh? And what am I thinking, Bucky?”

“That—that I can’t—that I don’t wanna do commitment,” Bucky says with his eyes down. He doesn’t look up, not even when Sam grabs his hand.

“That’s not exactly it, no,” he says softly.

“No?”

“No. I was thinking that Steve was getting a little ahead of himself, as usual, and that we should have this conversation _eventually_ , but not now.”

“Oh.” Bucky looks up for the first time.

“Yeah, _oh,_ ” Sam says with a smile. “Does that help? Or is there something else going on?”

Damn Sam and his perceptiveness.

“There’s something else. I...I was worried. Because I want all these things.”

“That worries you?” Sam is frowning now.

“It worries me because I want all these things, but I can’t—I can’t even tell you—” _Shit_. _Come on, Barnes. This is Sam_. “I haven’t been able to tell you how I feel.”

Sam’s face softens, and the frown disappears. “I know how you feel, baby. I do.”

Bucky shakes his head. “But it’s not enough. You deserve to know. You should be told.”

Bucky takes Sam’s other hand, and brings them close to his chest, where his heart is beating much faster than it should. If this was a movie, his hands wouldn’t be sweating, this bathroom wouldn’t smell the way it does, and Bucky would have the perfect speech to make Sam understand how much he loved him before he even said the words.

But this is real life, and Bucky’s got no giant cue cards, no boombox to make this perfect, so he takes a deep breath and braces himself.

“Sam, sweetheart. This, uh, this is hard for me to say, but not because I don’t...want to. It’s ‘cause it’s never really happened. But—but there’s a first time for everything, and if there’s anyone who could make me say it it’s you. I—I…” Bucky swallows hard. “I love you.”

Sam’s face softens even more, before he takes a step closer and kisses Bucky, slow and gentle.

“I love you too. And if that’s the only time you can say it, that’s—”

“I love you, Sam” Bucky says again, with a kiss to Sam’s hands. It’s out. It’s out, and _God_ it feels good. “I love you. And I’ll say it as often as I like.”

Bucky feels Sam’s little huff on his face, and he grins.

“I love you, bird boy.”

“Oh hell no,” Sam says, pulling away.

“I love you, my _sweet_ baby falcon.”

“This was a mistake,” Sam sighs. “Don’t say it!” he adds, before Bucky can reply with his favorite comeback. He’s gonna say it anyway. He’s said much scarier, much more important things than that tonight.

“Your face is a mistake.”

“You’re a mess, James Buchanan Barnes.”

“I’m a mess and you love me anyways, so who’s the bigger mess?”

Sam rolls his eyes, but he leans in and kisses Bucky again, longer and deeper than he had before. Bucky’s a little breathless when they separate.

“ _You’re_ the bigger mess,” Sam says quietly. “And I love you.”

Bucky’s eyes are still closed, but he smiles, ready to say the words he never wants to stop saying now.

“I love you too.”

***

  
For the first time that night, long after the party, when all three of them were laying in Sam’s bed, Bucky can say I love you before they fall asleep.

The smile on Sam’s face is better than any movie he’s seen.

 

 **End**.

**Author's Note:**

> this ended up being *much* flufflier than i intended lol.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this and comments make my day, so feel free to leave some below!
> 
> Lastly, I am on [Tumblr](http://targaryenmelodrama.tumblr.com) if you wanna drop by!


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